This famous YouTube duo's first venture into feature filmmaking is, in short, a train wreck.
Smosh got their start releasing short comedy sketches on the Internet, and this movie actually attempts to place them in a coherent narrative. As such, the plot is as simple as it gets; one of our leads needs to ensure that an embarrassing video that shows him goofing around is destroyed before his high school crush sees it, so he can impress her at some kind of school reunion or whatever the hell it was. Honestly, who cares? The writers sure didn't, and I'd be surprised if anyone in the audience did. Personally, I was waiting for the obligatory scene where he finds out that the lady likes him anyway and we get a cringe-worthy and obvious ending, complete with the cheesy "be yourself" message that's been done to death, but whatever. It's presumably aimed at easily-amused 12-year-olds, so who cares about the storyline? The filmmakers certainly didn't seem to; at least, the lazy and predictable story didn't give that impression.
We get all the scenes we're expecting. You know they're going to learn that in the end, all that's important is believing in yourself. We know that they're going to have a falling out and be angry with each other for a bit, only to kiss and make up before the third act. I predicted every single thing that was going to happen. It's the most tired, most done-to-death story imaginable. It's as if no one making the film even cared.
But the film's selling point - apart from cameos by other famous YouTube celebrities like Markiplier and Jenna Marbles - seems to be the comedy, and as such, the story really isn't a huge focus. A good story is always nice, but in a comedy like this, it's not necessarily bad to have something basic. All you need is some simple excuse to have your two leads go on an adventure and goof around, and once the comedy itself works, it's fine. Unfortunately, that's not the case here. The comedy is about as predictable as the cliché- riddled story, and every bit as painful. If you're older than fifteen, prepare to roll your eyes more often than you smile.
The only parts I found amusing were, actually, seemingly unintentional; the film's effects were so cheap, I couldn't help but laugh at how downright ridiculous some of the scenes looked. As a fan of "so bad it's good" funny movies, this is the only reason I gave the film two stars as opposed to one, but I can assure you that I would have given it the lowest possible rating if not for those moments. Unfortunately, they're pretty rare, and given how painful the rest of the jokes are, I just don't think it's worth it. There's a fine line between something being bad to the point of being amusing enough to watch, and then just being plain awful. This seems to poke its head into the former category at times, only to come running back to the latter, where it belongs.
There are also these little moments that suck you out of the film. Smosh fans will notice that the video is an obvious nod to the Pokemon theme song, as the first Smosh video to ever exist was their parody of it. But the film's version of that video replaces the song with an obvious knock-off of Pokemon, clearly for copyright reasons. There are also things like terrible green-screen effects, and I seem to recall hearing a Wilhelm scream at one point. Moments like this only make the film more annoying than the horrible jokes and wooden performances do.
On that note, by the way, the acting is very bad. It also doesn't help that the characters themselves are unlikable and obnoxious. When they're not being stupid, they're being downright unpleasant to other characters. One of the leads has a crush on a girl whose YouTube channel hosts a video where she's having her butt massaged, so he labels her "Butt Massage Girl" and when he meets her and (of course) becomes her love interest, that's what he calls her, constantly telling her to shut up if she tries to reveal her actual name. The purpose of this is so that they can prolong the moment where it turns out that her name is Brad (a nod to a previous scene where the character was warned to make sure his future spouse is not actually a man) and he subsequently freaks out. Because comedy, I think.
Christ, what an awful movie.
The story is predictable and lazy. The jokes are painful. The acting is atrocious. The characters are unlikable and annoying. It's boring, it's stupid, it's annoying, it's not funny, it's just not good. Don't even bother seeing it. Don't give your money to these idiots.
Smosh got their start releasing short comedy sketches on the Internet, and this movie actually attempts to place them in a coherent narrative. As such, the plot is as simple as it gets; one of our leads needs to ensure that an embarrassing video that shows him goofing around is destroyed before his high school crush sees it, so he can impress her at some kind of school reunion or whatever the hell it was. Honestly, who cares? The writers sure didn't, and I'd be surprised if anyone in the audience did. Personally, I was waiting for the obligatory scene where he finds out that the lady likes him anyway and we get a cringe-worthy and obvious ending, complete with the cheesy "be yourself" message that's been done to death, but whatever. It's presumably aimed at easily-amused 12-year-olds, so who cares about the storyline? The filmmakers certainly didn't seem to; at least, the lazy and predictable story didn't give that impression.
We get all the scenes we're expecting. You know they're going to learn that in the end, all that's important is believing in yourself. We know that they're going to have a falling out and be angry with each other for a bit, only to kiss and make up before the third act. I predicted every single thing that was going to happen. It's the most tired, most done-to-death story imaginable. It's as if no one making the film even cared.
But the film's selling point - apart from cameos by other famous YouTube celebrities like Markiplier and Jenna Marbles - seems to be the comedy, and as such, the story really isn't a huge focus. A good story is always nice, but in a comedy like this, it's not necessarily bad to have something basic. All you need is some simple excuse to have your two leads go on an adventure and goof around, and once the comedy itself works, it's fine. Unfortunately, that's not the case here. The comedy is about as predictable as the cliché- riddled story, and every bit as painful. If you're older than fifteen, prepare to roll your eyes more often than you smile.
The only parts I found amusing were, actually, seemingly unintentional; the film's effects were so cheap, I couldn't help but laugh at how downright ridiculous some of the scenes looked. As a fan of "so bad it's good" funny movies, this is the only reason I gave the film two stars as opposed to one, but I can assure you that I would have given it the lowest possible rating if not for those moments. Unfortunately, they're pretty rare, and given how painful the rest of the jokes are, I just don't think it's worth it. There's a fine line between something being bad to the point of being amusing enough to watch, and then just being plain awful. This seems to poke its head into the former category at times, only to come running back to the latter, where it belongs.
There are also these little moments that suck you out of the film. Smosh fans will notice that the video is an obvious nod to the Pokemon theme song, as the first Smosh video to ever exist was their parody of it. But the film's version of that video replaces the song with an obvious knock-off of Pokemon, clearly for copyright reasons. There are also things like terrible green-screen effects, and I seem to recall hearing a Wilhelm scream at one point. Moments like this only make the film more annoying than the horrible jokes and wooden performances do.
On that note, by the way, the acting is very bad. It also doesn't help that the characters themselves are unlikable and obnoxious. When they're not being stupid, they're being downright unpleasant to other characters. One of the leads has a crush on a girl whose YouTube channel hosts a video where she's having her butt massaged, so he labels her "Butt Massage Girl" and when he meets her and (of course) becomes her love interest, that's what he calls her, constantly telling her to shut up if she tries to reveal her actual name. The purpose of this is so that they can prolong the moment where it turns out that her name is Brad (a nod to a previous scene where the character was warned to make sure his future spouse is not actually a man) and he subsequently freaks out. Because comedy, I think.
Christ, what an awful movie.
The story is predictable and lazy. The jokes are painful. The acting is atrocious. The characters are unlikable and annoying. It's boring, it's stupid, it's annoying, it's not funny, it's just not good. Don't even bother seeing it. Don't give your money to these idiots.